Day Trip to Willy’s Records:

Saturday came just in time. I had my dimes, quarters, and nickels all in a bag plastic bag. Saturday was the best day of the week for me. I got to buy a new LP each week. Daddy loved my growing collection. Momma, on the other hand, not so much. I try my best not to think about her or her fights with daddy. This was my day. I managed to sneak out of the house before they could start yelling at each other again. That is a skill in itself. I have to try and not make a sound when I sneak out of my room. That in itself is next to impossible due to the hard wood floors in Firefly House. The floors creaked with each step. Socks helped me a little bit, but I had to try and walk lightly. I looked around as I walked. I came to my parents’ room. I noticed that the door was opened a crack. They both look asleep. Wait, daddy and momma are in the same bed together? That was almost rare when I was growing up. Maybe, he and momma stopped fighting for once and decided to be adults. I don’t really know.

I had to pry myself away from the door to get out of the house. I can’t stay around for them to wake up and fight. I crept all the way to the stairs. Here came the hardest part. These old hickory stairs creaked no one how lightly I tried to walk on them. I swallowed hard. I still haven’t mastered walking down the stairs without waking them up. I took one more look behind me before I begin my walk. I count the steps as I walk down them. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. I looked behind me. Nobody was coming out to investigate. I forced myself to keep walking. The wait is hurting my nerves. It just wanted to get this over with and get out of that house. I looked down before me. Darn it, I had nineteen more steps to go. Not much to a normal person, but too much for me. I forced myself to stay calm as I continued to walk down each step carefully. I looked over my shoulder each time I moved.

Once I reached the last step, I quietly breathed out through my nose. That hardest part was over. I looked out ahead of me. There was the blackened oak door. I just had to make it outside and ran away through the woods to town. I proceeded across the hard wood floor to the door. Again, it isn’t really that long, but to me, the Las Vegas desert couldn’t compare to the distance I had to cross. I reached out and touched the wood of the door. I finally began to smile. I made it. I quickly took off my indoor socks, put on my regular shoes and socks, and unlocked the door. I softly stepped out and closed the door behind me. The morning sun greeted me in my success as I hurried down in the woods.

I took my usual path to the main road and hurried all the way into town. The town had just woken up for the day. I didn’t stay around for the sight-seeing. I only had one goal in mind for all of my Saturdays. I picked up my step and raced down the street.

I pushed open the glass down to Willy’s Records. The smell of moth balls and ginger tickled my nose hairs. The little specks of dust swirled around before my eyes. I could tell that Mr. Willy had just opened this treasure chest. I took a moment to look around. No people were in sight this morning. Just all of those beautiful LPs on display. I closed my eyes for a brief second. I could hear them all calling out to me.

“Take us home!” they all cried out. “Play us; we have a story to share.” That’s what daddy told me when I asked him why he liked LPs so much.

“They all have a story to tell,” he said as he took a puff of his cigarette. I looked at him with a perked curiosity.

“What kind of story?” I asked.

“You have to listen and see,” he replied. That answer is what started my love of vinyl. Momma, Ashleen, and everyone else at my school thinks I am crazy not to love CDs and tapes. They can’t even compare to the glory of vinyl. Daddy even bought me my little pink recorder player for Christmas when I was five. (I still have it to this day.)

My thoughts were broken when I heard the clacking of the back beaded curtain swinging.  I looked opened my eyes and turned my head. Mr. Willy was coming from the back with a box of fresh and rare LPs. I smiled as I guessed that they would go out on display. Mr. Willy’s mood lightened up to the clouds.

“Faye!” he cheered. “So good to see you again!” I held out my baggie of coins.

“I’ve brought money today!” I cheered. Mr. Willy’s wrinkles smiled with him. I was his favorite customer. He barely got any customers in his shop. Most of the people in Wurtland went to the newer music stores for CDs or tapes. Only collectors, old people, Daddy, and I shopped in that place then. Mr. Willy would go on and on about how the shop was in its prime when his grandfather first opened it in the 1950’s. Now, it was, he put it with weathered eyes, crumbling like Ozymandias. I looked at him funny the first time Mr. Willy told me that.

“What is that?” I asked him one day as I turned away from The Animals’ The Animals LP the back corner to face him. My old friend came out of his mourning daze.

“What is what?” he asked.

“Ozy—whatever you mean?” I asked, fully turning to him now. He smiled and shook his head at me.

“Ozymandias is a poem by Percy Shelley,” my friend said. I tilted my head at him.

“Percy who?” I asked.

“I met a traveler from an antique land,” Mr. Willy began reciting aloud as if he didn’t hear my question. “Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone. Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand. Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown. And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command. Tell that its sculptor well those passions read. Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things. The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear. ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay. Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare. The lone and level sands stretch far away.” He must have noticed that I had a look of reading a map in another language foreign to me, because a chuckled at me.

“You’ll know all about Mr. Shelley and Ozymandias when you get a little older,” he smoothed over. I still couldn’t grasp a single work that he said. Mr. Willy clapped his hands together and breathed out.

“Right,” he spoke up. “How about some music?” I smiled as he put on Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” on the store’s vinyl to flood the air.

Today, Mr. Willy smiled at me and by big bag of money. It was time to “do business”, as he called it.

“So little lady,” my old friend said. “What will it be today?” I smiled as I only had one LP on my mind that day.

“Are You Experienced? By the Jimi Hendrix Experience!” I said, almost shouting. Mr. Willy gave me one of the oddest looks I had ever seen in my life.

“Are you sure?” he asked. I nodded at him in innocent sense.

“Of course,” I replied. “I have the money for it.” Mr. Willy bit his lip.

“You sure about that?” he asked again. “You think you can handle it?”

“Yes!” I cheered. “I can handle it just fine!”

“You positive?” my friend asked. “It seems a bit too… mature for you.”

“Yes!” I yelped, nearly stamping my foot. “I want this album. I have the money for it. So can I please have it?” Mr. Willy gave me a little smile.

“Well okay then,” he said. “You may have it.” I blinked at him once.

“What?” I asked. “Just like that? Then what was all of the questions for?”

“Oh,” he said. “Just to see if you were fully committed to this album in particular.” I tilted my head at him again.

“But why?” I asked. “Why would I need to be fully committed to buying Jimi Hendrix?” Mr. Willy turned his back to me as he walked over to the counter. He glanced over his shoulder at me.

“Jimi is a special record,” was all he said to me. I still couldn’t grasp it.

“What do you mean? Special how?” I questioned.

“You will learn,” Mr. Willy replied. “Now are we going to do business today?” I quickly nodded at him.

“Yes, okay!” I said, quickly. Then, I raced over to the shelf and picked up Are You Experienced? with a little help from the step ladder just inches to my left.

“Be careful with it,” I heard Mr. Willy tell me once I had the LP in my hands.

“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I will.” Once I had the album, I slowly and surely walked back down the step ladder and made my way over to the counter. Mr. Willy gave me one more stern look.

“Are you sure about all of this?” he asked me one more time.

“Yes!” I insisted. “I have the money!”

“Okay, okay,” my old friend said. “Twenty-five cents please.” I looked at him with big eyes.

“Twenty-five cents for this record?!?” I asked with a high-pitched squeak. “That’s more than you usually charge anyone!” Mr. Willy gave me a little wink.

“Hey, I told you,” he replied. “This one is really special.” “It better be for me to pay that much for one record,” I thought as I reluctantly opened my bag and dug out the change. Once I bought Jimi Hendrix, Mr. Willy gave me one more smile as he put my new record in a brown paper bag.

“Have a nice day,” he told me. I only nodded my head and him and left the store. I wasn’t ready to go home yet. Momma and Daddy could be up fighting by now. I can’t deal with that this morning. I decided to explode the town once again. So, I headed further into the streets.

	The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Stone Free .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine